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V 

EULOGY 

ON THE 

LIFE AND CHARACTER 

OP 

YELVERTON PEYTON PAGE, Esq,, 

M.\ W.\ GRAND MASTER OF MASONS 

OF THE 

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. 

Pronounced, at the request of Washington Naval Lodge, No. 
4, BEFORE THAT BODY, THE GRAND LODGE OF THE DISTRICT OF 
Columbia, Washington Commandery of Knights Temp¬ 
lar, No. 1, AND A LARGE ASSEMBLAGE OF CITIZENS, 
at the Methodist Episcopal Church on 4th 
street East, in the City of Washington, 

ON THE EVENING OF OCTOBER 31, 1863, 

BY 

BENJAMIN B. FRENCH, 33* 

M.\ W.*. Past Grand Master of Masons of the District of 
Columbia, and Grand Master of Knights 
Templar of the U. S. of A. 


Printed at the request of Washington Naval Lodge , and in con¬ 
formity with a resolution of the Grand Lodge. 


WASHINGTON: 

H. POLKINHORN, PRINTER, 375 AND 377 D STREET, NEAR SEVENTH. 

1863. 

copy 7 . 


tsm 

















Grand Lodge of F. & A. M. of the Dist. of Col., 
Office of the Grand Secretary, 

Washington , Dec . 12, A. L. 5863. 
Hon. B. B. French, P.\ G.\ M.\ 

Dear Sir and Brother : 

At the Annual Communication of the M.\ W.\ Grand Lodge, 
on motion of P.\ G.\ M.\ Stansbury, it was 

Resolved , That P.\ G.\ M.’. French be requested to permit 
the Eulogy pronounced by him before Washington Naval Lodge 
No. 4, on the life and character of our late Grand Master Page, 
together with the Hymn composed by him, and sung on that 
occasion, to be printed as an Appendix to the proceedings of the 
Grand Lodge. 

Your compliance with the above request, I assure you, will 
be highly gratifying to the fraternity of this Jurisdiction. 

Very respectfully, yours, 

W. MORRIS SMITH. 


Office of the Grand Master of Knights Templar 
of the United States of America, 

City of Washington, Dec. 14, 1863. 

Wm. Morris Smith, Esq., 

W. Grand Secretary of the 

Grand Lodge of the Dist. of Col. 

Dear Sir and Brother : 

I have received a certified copy of the Resolution adopted by 
the Grand Lodge at its last Annual Communication, requesting 
me to permit the Eulogy pronounced by me before Naval Lodge 
No 4, on the life and character of our late Grand Master Page, 
together with the Hymn composed by me, and sung on that oc¬ 
casion, to be printed as an Appendix to the proceedings of the 
Grand Lodge, with your request that I would comply with the 
same. 

I feel highly flattered at this mark of attention and respect 
from the Grand Lodge, and herewith send you a copy of the 
Eulogy and Hymn for the purpose indicated. 

Faithfully and Fraternally yours, 

B. B. FRENCH. 

















. . 















































. 





















































EULOGY. 


“ Friend after friend departs ; 

Who has not lost a friend ? 

There is no union here of hearts 
That finds not here an end!” 

Thus has some poet most truly written. How¬ 
ever dear the ties that bind us to each other in this 
world, they must be severed by that grim King of 
Terrors who ruleth over all things mortal. “ Dust 
thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return,” were the 
words of the Lord Grod unto the first man; that 
announcement became the law of our being, and 
here that law never has been, and never will be 
changed! 

Let any mortal of mature age go forth into any 
grave-yard contiguous to the place of his nativity, 
and he may read on many a head-stone, names of 
those who were dear to him in life, and whose 
memories are truly sacred. And it is well for us 
who live thus to visit the last resting places of 
those we love. It brings back the fond recollec¬ 
tions of the past, and many a scene of happiness 
mingles with the sadness that dwells in the heart 
of the mourner, and makes even that sadness almost 
a joy. The proud spirit is chastened by the mor¬ 
tality all around it, which saith, “ profit by these 
warnings, for to this state you are rapidly hasten¬ 
ing, and ere many days you too will find rest 
beneath these clods-” 

But the true and pure soul, under such circum¬ 
stances, becomes as it were glorified and expanded 
with the blessed assurance, that when the frail 











EULOGY. 


6 

tenement it inhabits has been laid in the dust, it 
shall joy forever in its immortality, where “ ever¬ 
lasting spring abides, and never withering flowers.” 

I But, after all it is hard to become reconciled to 
the thought that those whom we so dearly loved— 
whose lives seemed to knit with our own so closely 
that the web could not be sundered—are never 
more to mingle with us in this world; that the 
sweet communion we so often held with each other 
is forever at an end on this side of the dark river; 
that “ the silver cord is loosed and the golden bowl 
\ broken,” and that henceforward the spirit of 
the departed can only mingle with our own in the 
sweet recollections of the past, and the glorious 
anticipations of the future. 

‘‘Hark ! how the sacred calm, that breathes around, 

Bids every fierce tumultuous passion cease ; 

In still small accents whispering from the ground, 

A grateful earnest of eternal peace.” 

My Brethren, true affection in this world survives 
the tomb; it is as immortal as the Spirit of the 
Almighty which is implanted in the bosom of every 
rational being. We are created to love one 
another, and, if that love is pure and holy, it will 
never end. 

One of the best female poets of England, now no 
more in this world, has said, with as much strength 
and pathos as can well be expressed in language: 

“How say ye, ‘ We loved once,’ 

Blasphemers ! Is your earth not cold enow, 

Mourners, without that snow ? 

Ah, friends ! and would ye wrong each other so ? 

And could ye say of some whose love is known, 

Whose prayers have met your own, 

Whose tears have fallen for you, whose smiles have shone, 
So long—‘ We loved them once ? ’ 











EULOGY. 


7 

********** 

Say never ye loved once. 

God is too near above, the grave beneath, 

And all our moments breathe 
Too quick in mysteries of life and death 
For such a word. The eternities avenge 
Affections light of range, 

There comes no change to justify that change, 

Whatever comes— Loved once ! 
********** 

Love strikes one hour— Love ! those never loved, 

Who dream that they loved once.” 

It is a most consoling and sanctifying thought 
that, as the electric spark passes from Heaven to 
earth, and from earth to Heaven, so may the elec¬ 
tricity of affection pass back and forth between us 
and those we dearly loved on earth, who 
“ Sit and love us up in Heaven.” 

Impressed most deeply with these thoughts, in 
accordance with the request with which you have 
honored me, I came before you this evening to speak 
of one whom in life we all loved and respected, and 
whom we love still, although his body rests in the 
silent grave, whose memory is very precious to us 
all; our late Most Worshipful Grand Master 

YELVERTON PEYTON PAGE. 

Our deceased Brother was born in this city, and 
within a short distance of this place where we have 
met to do honor to his memory, on the 17th day of 
July, 1828. He was the son of Daniel and Eliza¬ 
beth Eleanor Page, both well known in this com¬ 
munity as among the most respectable, worthy, and 
pious inhabitants of Washington. Under the care 
and tuition of such parents, it was to be expected 





EULOGY. 


8 

that young Page would early develope a character 
for goodness, truth, and morality which should 
eventually give him a standing among his fellow 
citizens which should render him respected; 
esteemed; beloved, by all who knew him. 

This early promise ended in full fruition. 

He possessed no uncommon advantages of early 
education, but his naturally active and intelligent 
mind led him to seek knowledge wherever he could 
obtain it, and that mind was, at an early day, stored 
with such practical information as served to render 
him, through his adult life, one of our most accom¬ 
plished and useful citizens. In his early boyhood 
he was placed on the floor of the Senate of the 
United States as one of the pages of that August 
Body, which gave him an admirable opportunity 
to study both men and things, and it was by no 
means passed improfitably by. 

During the recesses of the Senate he spent his 
time in study. He soon became a favorite of the 
Senators, and with all who were connected with the 
Senate, and, by his merit alone, he rose to the 
occupancy of one of the most important Clerkships 
in the office of its Secretary, where his services were 
invaluable, and which position he held at the time of 
his decease. 

I will now proceed to discourse to you of his life 
and of his character. 

Oh that I could find language to clothe my own 
appreciation of that character in the glowing terms 
that it deserves. If my head would but respond to 
the impulses of my heart, our beloved Grand 
Master’s character should stand before you glorified, 
as such a pure and spotless life as his was, deserves 




EULOGY. 


9 

to be; as it is I will devote to his "memory all the 
descriptive power of truth that God has given me. 

In the first place it becomes the occasion that I 
should speak of his Masonic life and character. 

Brother Page was made an Entered Apprentice 
Mason, on the 5th day of June, 1847, at the age of 
24. At the time it so happened that I was Grand 
Master of Masons in this jurisdiction, and being 
present in Naval Lodge, it was my privilege to in¬ 
troduce him into our Order. On the 81st of the 
following July he passed the degree of Fellow Craft, 
and he was raised to the sublime degree of a Master 
Mason on the 2d, day of August. 

He was exalted to the degree of Royal Arch Ma¬ 
son in Washington Royal Arch Chapter. 

And was made a Knight Templar in Washington 
Commandery, on the 11th day of May, 1853. 

As a Craft Mason he was no drone in the Ma¬ 
sonic hive. He felt all the responsibilities that he 
had assumed, and with his usual zeal and conscien¬ 
tiousness, he commenced to make himself a profi¬ 
cient. The confidence and respect in which he was 
held by his brethren was early exhibited by elect¬ 
ing him Treasurer of Naval Lodge, on the 2d of 
December, 1848, which office he held until he was 
promoted to that of Senior Warden, on the 7th of 
December, 1850, and then, on the 6th of December, 
1851, to that of Worshipful Master of the Lodge. 
This last responsible and important office he held# 
and honored, with the exception of two years, until 
1857, and never were the duties of any office more 
faithfully and conscientiously performed than those 
of Worshipful Master were performed by Bro.. 
Page. Always at his post; always striving to. pro- 




10 


EULOGY. 


mote the interests of the Craft at large, and harmony 
and Brotherly love in his own Lodge. I had, many 
times, the pleasure of being seated at his side while 
he was presiding over his Lodge, and marked with 
admiration his dignified, but kind and courteous 
manner, and the perfect system with which he gov¬ 
erned his Lodge, every member of which, although 
many of them were much his seniors, both in age and 
in Masonry, looked up to him almost with the affec¬ 
tion and veneration with which children look up to 
a beloved and respected parent. A Brother who 
knew him well from his boyhood to his death, 
writes me, as follows : * 

u His Masonic advice and counsel I appreciated, 
and looked to him as an example. As a Mason 
his charity was known throughout this jurisdiction. 
He was not only always willing to appropriate the 
funds of the Lodge for the relief of the widow and 
the orphan, or distressed brethren, but his hand 
went deep into his own resources when occasion re¬ 
quired. 

He always ruled his Lodge with regularity and 
without partiality when Worshipful Master, and 
was ever ready to settle any difficulty or unpleas¬ 
ant feeling which might chance to arise among its 
members; in this respect, truly might he have been 
called a Peace Maker.” 

Well do I know, for he conferred with me upon 
the subject, that during an exciting political can¬ 
vass, the outside spirit of contention was found to 
be creeping into Naval Lodge, and fears were enter¬ 
tained that the harmony of the Body would be 
broken up. Worshipful Master Page attended, 
and cautioning his brethren, in his mild, affection- 





EULOGY. 11 

ate, but determined manner, be succeeded in fully 
impressing them with the importance of keeping 
everything but Brotherly love outside of the Lodge ; 
and by his counsel and pure example, the troubled 
waters were smoothed, the Lodge went on in har¬ 
mony, notwithstanding all the outward discord by 
which it was surrounded. 

Truly has my Brother given him the Blessed 
Saviour’s scriptural appellation, when he said 
“ Blessed are the peace makers, for they shall be 
called the children of God.” 

Asa member of the Christian Order of the Tem¬ 
ple, Sir Knight Page performed every duty well. 
Although making no outward prefession of Beli- 
gion, he was, in every fiber of his soul a Christian; 
and it is well-known to me that the solemn and im¬ 
pressive ceremonies of Templar Masonry were re¬ 
garded by him as one of the links of the great 
chain of morality which held him firmly to that 
anchor of Hope which is sure and steadfast, enter¬ 
ing into that which is within the vale. He was a 
Christian Knight in heart as well as in name ; and 
I fondly anticipated the time when I should see him 
at the head of the chivalric columns, which his out 
ward form and soldiery bearing, as well as the noble 
attributes of his generous and expanded mind, 
would have graced so well. Alas! alas—that fond 
anticipation was never to be realized! 

In the Grand Lodge of the District of Columbia, 
Brother PAGE stood among the best, and most in¬ 
fluential debaters, and exerted a vast influence for 
good. He was bold and decided in the expression 
of opinions which he considered right, and so well 
had he studied Masonry that he never seemed at a 




12 


EULOGY. 


a loss for precedents to sustain any argument which 
he put forth. Although modest and retiring, the 
Grand Lodge soon ascertained his worth, and he 
was elected and re-elected, again and again, Deputy 
Grand Master. I know that he was strongly urged 
to be a candidate for Grand Master, years before he 
was elected to that high office, but he invariable de¬ 
clined, and he assured me, at one time when I was 
urging it upon him as a duty, that he would not 
accept the office if he could avoid it, were he assured 
that he should receive the unanimous vote of the 
Grand Lodge ; and I verily believe, even now, that 
had he been present at the Grand Lodge when he was 
elected Grand Master, he would have sought to pro¬ 
hibit the use of his name as a candidate for the 
place. 

He was, however, elected, and we all fondly 
hoped, that when the day fixed for the Installation 
of the Grand Officers should arrive, that we should 
see him in the Hall of the Grand Lodge, sufficient¬ 
ly recovered in health to assume the duties of the 
position. But it was ordered otherwise. 

As is almost always the case with those who are 
lingering under the insidious, and, at times, flatter¬ 
ing disease which was upon him, he thought him¬ 
self improving in health, and when the Grand 
Lodge assembled at his dwelling, on the 3d day of 
January, to clothe him with all the powers of Grand 
Master, he was almost jubilant with the hope that 
a brief period would restore him to health—he 
earnestly looked forward to the beautiful spring 
time, as the period when he could go forth and 
breathe the pure of the country, and be himself 
again; and all who were present joined their wishes 




EULOGY. 


13 

and their prayers that such might be the case. Cir¬ 
cumstances, uncontrolable by me, rendered it im¬ 
possible that I should be present on that occasion 
It was my deep regret then, it has been since a still 
deeper regret, but God in Heaven knows how fond¬ 
ly and sincerely my wishes, and hopes, and prayers 
went up to Heaven for his recovery to health, and 
for a continuance of his worldly happiness and use¬ 
fulness for years to come. 

There is not, on all the records of the Grand 
Lodge of the District of Columbia, a more chaste, 
patriotic, appropriate, and happily conceived ad¬ 
dress, than the one delivered on the occasion of his 
instalment, by our deceased Grand Master. After 
a brief exordium, in which the innate modesty of 
his very soul shone forth in the expression of hesi¬ 
tation and distrust of his own ability, he says, in 
words that we now turn back to and read with 
tearful eyes—“you have summoned me in my 
weakness; you must sustain me by your strength.” 

How gladly—oh, how gladly, would we, each of 
us, have put forth all our human strength to sustain 
him. It would have been in vain, for he leant 
upon a Mightier arm than ours, and it sustained 
him, giving him strength to pass the dark river of 
death in glorious triumph, where we, ere long, must 
follow. God grant to us all, when that solemn 
hour shall come, the strength that he so kindly and 
so mercifully vouchsafed to our dear departed 
Brother! 

He assumed all the responsibilities of Grand Mas¬ 
ter, and although daily wearing away with disease, 
he performed every duty faithfully up to almost the 




EULOGY. 


14 

very day of his death; how faithfully the records 
of his official acts will show. 

Such, my Brethren, were the outward Masonic 
acts, visible to us all, and an example for us all, of 
Yelverton Peyton Page. They were but the 
manifestations of a pure heart, and a mind glowing 
with a desire to perform every duty toward God 
and man. 

Freemasonry to him was not a mere shadow; a 
ceremony to be gone through with and then forgot¬ 
ten; an Order furnishing forth men to display 
aprons and collars, and nothing more! It was a 
solemn and abiding obfigation upon him, to do his 
utmost to make his fellow-beings happy; to feed the 
hungry, clothe the naked, and minister to the wants 
and comforts of the sick and the afflicted. It was 
truly to him—what it has been so eloquently de¬ 
scribed, by some writer, to be—“a sublime system 
of morality, clothed in allegory, and illustrated by 
symbols and emblems.” 

His own pure life was an illustration of its mor¬ 
ality—the allegory of the Order, teaching goodness, 
and truth, and virtue, he never lost sight of—and 
the symbols and emblems, gathered mostly from 
the W ord of the Living God, stood like the ladder 
which the Patriarch in his vision saw, leading from 
Earth to Heaven, and were to 'him the assurance 
that his Heavenly Father had provided a way by 
which those who believed in him, and kept his law, 
should be exalted to a Heavenly home, where they 
should enjoy eternal happines. 

And now, my Brethren and Friends, having 
taken a brief view of the Masonic life and character 
of our dear friend and beloved Brother, let us dwell 




EULOGY. 15 

a short time, on his life and character as a man and 
a citizen. And here no broad field presents itself, 
where deeds of daring, or scenes of wild adventure 
are to be described; no ambitious seeking after 
fame or fortune; no oceans crossed or continents 
explored; but a quiet, unobtrusive life of careful 
attention to every important matter entrusted to his 
care, with a conscientious honesty of purpose to do 
every duty to his country, to his employers, to his 
family, and to his God. * 

Mr. Page’s life was spent in the District of 
Columbia, but the knowledge of his practical use¬ 
fulness was extended over this broad Union! 

In early life, as I have said before, he became 
one of the pages in the Senate of the United States, 
a place though humble in itself, from whence a 
young man may rise to eminence, or may descend 
into utter insignificance, as his good or evil genius 
may dictate. Mr. Page’s good genius, in the form 
of industry, attention to duty, and a kind and 
respectful bearing that endeared him to all, attended 
him, and his course was upward. At an early 
period of his manhood, he became a Clerk in the 
office of the Secretary of the Senate, and the duties 
entrusted to him were important and arduous. 
How he performed them the records he has left 
behind bear witness. ISTo man could be more faith¬ 
ful to his trust than he was. The most careful 
precision marked all his official acts, and his full 
knowledge of laws, reports, precedents of order, 
indeed of every thing appertaining to the legislation 
of Congress, made him one of the most practically 
useful men about the Capitol. Every Senator who 
has held a seat in the Senate for the last fifteen 




EULOGY. 


16 

years, has known him well, and there are few, if 
any of them, who have not been indebted to Mr. 
Page for official information. It is probably well 
known to you all that circumstances have connected 
me, officially, with Congress, and the Capitol nearly 
all the time, for thirty years. I became acquainted 
with Mr. Page, perhaps 20 years ago, and that 
acquaintance ripened into a warm and intimate 
friendship, aside from our Masonic relations. For 
the eight or ten years anterior to his sickness, 
scarcely a week passed that I did not see him at the 
Capitol, and oft times I was with him daily. I 
have been in the room he occupied, when Senator 
after Senator came in asking him for information 
on different subjects, or desiring statements which 
I well knew must occupy days of careful and 
laborious research. Never did I see him out of 
temper, or in the least restive or embarrassed. No 
excuses of want of time, or of hard work were ever 
made, but, with a kind and beaming smile, always 
characteristic of him, the promise was given, “ it 
shall be done,” and it ivas done, though the hours 
that should have been devoted to sleep, or to needed 
relief from duty, were largely encroached upon to do 
it. By this course he won the regard of every 
Senator, and there are but few now, of that digni¬ 
fied body, who have not, dropped or will not, drop 
a tear to his memory. 

The venerable patriot and statesman, Lewis Cass, 
was his firm and abiding friend. He gave Mr. 
Page his confidence, and he could not have en¬ 
trusted it to a more secure depository. The relations 
existing between them, were more like those be¬ 
tween father and son than between a great states- 










EULOGY. 


17 

man and an humble clerk, and it is known to me that 
an affectionate regard existed one for the other, that 
did honor to them both. 

As evidence of Mr. Page’s abiding love for his 
venerable friend, I will relate a circumstance that 
occurred only a few days before his death, as it was 
related to me. 

A portrait of General Cass hung in the room where 
he lay sick, and, in his delirium, he would ad¬ 
dress it in endearing and respectful language under 
the evident impression that he was conversing with 
the beloved original. Supposing that the excite¬ 
ment attending this fancied interview might injure 
her husband, Mrs. Page, while he slept, removed it. 
The next day the poor sufferer imagined that Gen. 
Cass stood in person at his bedside, and he eagerly 
leaped forward to embrace him, in doing which he 
fell exhausted upon his pillow. So vivid was the 
vision to his disturbed imagination, that he actually 
believed, all through the remainder of his illness; 
that his great friend had been present; and he spoke 
of the goodness which had prompted him to make 
a journey from his home to this city to visit a poor 
invalid like him! 

No man possessed a clearer or better balanced 
mind than Mr. Page. This I have reason to know, 
for my acquaintance with him having, as I have 
already said, ripened into an intimacy and a warm 
and abiding friendship, created a confidence between 
us that induced a comparison of ideas on many a 
subject, and I soon ascertained that I could not find 
a more safe adviser, or a man more practical in his 
views of men and things, than my friend and 
Brother Page ; and I here acknowledge my indebt- 




EULOGY. 


18 

edness to him for many a kind suggestion, and 
many a friendly act, from which I derived impor¬ 
tant benefits, and which I never can, and never shall 
forget. 

Mr. Page’s father and mother were members of 
the Methodist Episcopal Church, and he was a wor¬ 
shiper with them. Our departed friend, honoring 
the memory of his parents, felt a deep interest that, 
a handsome church, devoted to worshipers who held 
the same belief in which those parents lived and 
died, should be erected, was among those who aided 
in building this church, in which we are now assem¬ 
bled to do honor to his memory. He was one of 
the building committee. Its corner-stone was laid 
with Masonic honors, by the Grand Lodge of the 
District of Columbia, through his influence, and he 
made numerous suggestions as the building pro¬ 
gressed, which, as one of his colleagues on the com¬ 
mittee has informed me, were at once adopted. 

In this church he worshiped as long as he con¬ 
tinued to reside in this part of the city. On leav¬ 
ing it to reside in E street, near the Presbyterian 
Church on 4| street, he attended that church, and 
mainly through his influence and exertions the 
great improvement in that edifice washnade. Here, 
again, he was honored by being placed on the build¬ 
ing committee, and his time and energies, as well as 
his mechanical accomplishments, which were by no 
means small, were devoted to the converting of that 
edifice from a mere pile of brick and mortar into 
the elegant house of worship it now is. 

Mr. Page was married to Miss Martha E. Arnold 
on the 27th day of September, 1847, a lady every 
way calculated to make him happy in his domestic 





EULOGY. 


19 


relations. Six children were the fruits of this 
happy union. The mortal remains of three of 
whom rest by the side of their beloved father, 
while the other three survive him, and we hope 
and trust will do honor in their lives to so good a 
parent. 

Up to the 6th of October, 1862, Mr. Page en¬ 
joyed his usual health. Prior to, and at that 
time, the Capitol was converted into one vast hos¬ 
pital for wounded soldiers; his sympathetic feel¬ 
ings were excited, and he exerted himself to add 
to the comforts of these poor wounded men. These 
unaccustomed exertions, and exposure in the damp 
passages of the building, brought on a cold which 
resulted in a violent attack of pneumonia, which 
soon prostrated him, so that, for many days his 
life was despaired of. He however recovered, and 
we all fondly believed we should again look upon 
him in restored health, amid the scenes of his use¬ 
fulness. We saw him again in our streets, and 
within the Capitol, but the glow of health for 
which we hoped was not upon his cheek; still we 
hoped on. He left us for a time in the anticipation 
that a change of place, and the salubrious breezes 
of the highlands might bring health, but none of I 
the changes incident to earth could bring back 
strength to that wasting form, and fullness to that 
sunken cheek. He returned to his home—his dear 
domestic home—only to linger on to dissolution. 

He grew weaker and weaker, until the 26th day of 
September last, on which day, in the bosom of his 
family, and with his beloved ones all about him, 
and with the glorious hope of a blessed immortality, 
he died; leaving the partner of his joys and his 









EULOGY. 


20 

sorrows, and his surviving children, to mourn the 
greatest loss that can befall earth-born beings. 

Our friend and Brother bore, through the forty 
years of his existence, a character as pure as the 
driven snow. His truth, his honor and his honesty 
might have been proverbial, for on them no spot nor 
blemish were ever known. 

On his dying bed he remarked that he was most 
thankful that, amid all the temptations that had 
surrounded him, he had never wronged the Gov¬ 
ernment nor an individual out of a single penny, 
and that he could leave, as a legacy to his children, 
an honest name, which was better than either silver 
or gold! He also thanked God that he should die 
a Union man! 

We have traced briefly, but, we hope truly, the 
Masonic and worldy life of our departed friend. 

There was another life—we cannot unbar the 
sacred portals that have concealed from the world 
that life of domestic love, which we know must 
have been the crowning joy of his own and his 
family’s existence. His affectionate disposition 
could not be hidden. We all saw it, pure and 
lovely as the bursting buds of spring; and we well 
know that such a disposition carried into the family 
circle, must have created, as it were, a halo of affec¬ 
tion all around him. 

We can well imagine what the breaking up of 
such ties must be S5 the survivors; many of us 
know it by sad experience, and our hearts can truly 
sympathize with the bereaved. 

“ All it is sad when one thus linked departs, 

When Death, that mighty severer of true hearts, 
Sweeps through the halls, so lately loud in mirth, 

And leaves pale sorrow weeping by the hearth.’’ 




EULOGY. 


21 


It is, however, a consolation to the surviving 
mourners, and to us all, that our friend was fully 
prepared to meet the King of Terrors. 

“ Oh God 1 it is a fearful thing 
To see the human soul take wing 
In any shape, in any mood:— 

I’ve seen it rushing forth in blood, 

I’ve seen it on the breaking ocean 
Strive with a swoln convulsive motion, 

I’ve seen the sick and ghastly bed 
Of sin delirious with dread: 

But these were horrors—this was woe 
Unmixed with such—but sure and slow : 

He faded, and so calm and meek, 

So softly worn, so sweetly weak, 

So tearless,' yet so tender—kind, 

And grieved for those he left behind; 

With all the while a cheek whose bloom 
Was as a mockery of the tomb, 

Whose tints as gently sunk away 
As a departed rainbow’s ray— 

An eye of most transparent light 
That almost made the darkness bright, 

And not a word of murmur—not # 

A groan o’er his untimely lot— 

A little talk of better days, 

A little hope our own to raise— 

And then the sighs he would suppress 

Of fainting nature’s feebleness 

More slowly drawn, grew less and less,” 

Till all was hushed—life’s cord was riven 
And his pure spirit passed to Heaven. 

We leave him, living still in our memories, in 
all our hearts, as he was in life, a pure, upright and 
universally beloved human being. 













EULOGY. 


22 


“HE DOETH ALL THINGS WELL.” 

’ BY P.*. G. *. M.‘. B. B. FRENCH. 

[Composed by Brother French especially for the commemo¬ 
rative services of the late G.\ M.\ Y. P. Page, of Naval Lodge, 
Washington city, and sung by the choir on that occasion.] 

We praise thee gracious God, 

We glorify Thy name; 

Sore stricken by Thy rod, 

We bow beneath the same : 

For though Thy ways we cannot tell, 

We know Thou doeth all things well. 

The brother of our love ; 

So good, so true, so kind, 

Has gone to realms above, 

Rest from our world to find: 

He lives where saints and angels dwell, 

Where seraph harps Thy glories swell. 

Then, while we mourn our loss, 

We will our God adore ; 

’ Tis but our earthly cross— 

He has but gone before— 

He wears the crown with those who dwell 
With One who doeth all things well. 

Again, in realms above, 

We shall our brother meet; 

Add hear Christ’s words of love 
From off the mercy seat: 

“ Come all ye blest, forever dwell 
With God, who doeth all things well.” 

Then mourners cease to weep; 

Brothers, repress the sigh— 

Our dear one doth but sleep, 

To wake again on high. 

Mid bliss and joy tongue cannot tell, 

With God, who doeth all things well. 


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